Let’s Give It a Whirl
business, energy, happy jack wind farm,
A motorist taking a drive west on Happy Jack Road doesn’t take long to realize that the large wind turbines on the horizon are producing energy right before their eyes.
“Cheyenne is among a growing number of communities across the nation that is looking at ways to produce renewable energy with the idea that some of the electricity being produced might be lighting up the light bulbs in our very own homes,” said Rick Kaysen, mayor of Cheyenne.
The Happy Jack Wind Farm, which opened in September 2008, was built by Duke Energy for Cheyenne Light, Fuel & Power, a subsidiary of Black Hills Corp. The nearly 30-megawatt wind farm, located 8 miles outside the city on city-owned land, is providing thousands of homes with power and establishing Cheyenne as a green community.
“One of the biggest advantages is that wind energy does not suffer from fuel-price volatility,” says Mark Stege, vice president of operations for Cheyenne Light, Fuel & Power. “In addition, the operation and maintenance costs for wind are relatively low compared to other forms of energy production, and the time it takes to construct and start up a wind energy facility is relatively short when compared to that of a coal-fired or natural gas facility.”
And wind is plentiful in the state.
Wyoming has a great wind resource,” says Mike Schmidt, program Director/instructor of the wind energy technology program at Laramie County Community College. “The advantages of wind energy are that wind is a completely renewable energy source. Electricity produced from wind leaves no ash piles or CO2 emissions, and wind energy creates high skilled high paying jobs in rural areas of our state, and other states, that have struggled because job opportunities are not there. The focus of our program is to prepare technicians to fill these jobs, servicing and repairing these very sophisticated machines.”
The Happy Jack Wind Farm, which has 14 wind turbines so far, will provide Cheyenne Light, Fuel & Power with between 90,000 and 110,000 megawatt hours annually. Just as important, it’s another statewide step in making wind power a more significant energy source.
“At the end of 2007, the state was producing 288 megawatts from wind power,” Schmidt says. “At the end of September 2008, we had increased that amount to 459 megawatts.”
The 4,500 megawatts goal is a big jump from what the state was producing earlier this decade. Five years ago wind turbines were producing 660 kilowatts of power each. Now, the turbines at Happy Jack Wind Farm each produce 2.1 megawatts of power.
The city of Cheyenne isn’t going to stop there. There are plans under review to build another wind farm at the city-owned Belvoir Ranch, where 10,000 acres out of 17,000 acres could be available for wind turbines.
“Turbines at the site could produce 200 to 400 megawatts in the future,” Kaysen says. “This is one more step in us taking a leadership role in renewable energy.”
The residents of Cheyenne have embraced the city’s efforts to develop wind power and support its effort to become a beacon in the quest for renewable energy.
“The new wind facility has had a very positive impact on the community, and overall, the residents of Cheyenne appear to be very accepting of it,” says Stege, who serves on the Laramie County Community College wind technician advisory board. “Wyoming is ranked seventh in available wind resources in the U.S., with a large amount of exceptional resources yet untapped.”
One of the next hurdles to overcome in this growing sector is how to export the excess wind energy.
“We can’t use all that electricity here in Wyoming; our state’s potential for growth in this industry is limited only by the ability to move the electrical power we produce to where it is needed.” Schmidt says.
In the meantime, Cheyenne can look to the west and watch the wind turbines work for them.
Story by Michael Kelly
Photo by Brian McCord
